Last day in Merida

Until today, the weather has been rather disappointing. A warm 20c to 24c but mostly cloudy with occasional flashes of sunshine. But today the sky was blue and the sun shone all day and we spent much of the afternoon on the roof terrace.
But not before our last bits of sightseeing. A 20 min walk takes you to another Roman Bridge ( over a tributary of the Guadiana) from which you can see the remains of an enormous aqueduct that brought water to the city from 10km away. Whilst not as wonderfully preserved as the one in Segovia, it is still a very impressive sight - and nearly every tower had a storks nest on top.
The last two sites on our list were a HUGE, over 400m long and over 100 m wide, circus used for chariot races, and the Basilica of Santa Eulalia - a martyr in Roman times and the patron saint of Merida. Dating from just 20 or 30 AD, the circus was Impressive from its size, certainly by far the biggest I've seen , it took me nearly an hour to walk around it. The basilica was small and unremarkable, with Roman remains in the under crypt, but with visigoth foundations dating to 5th c AD. They used a convenient roman temple as an portico.

Tomorrow afternoon we return to Madrid ready for our flight home on Monday.Leggi altro